A Hologram for the King

A failed American businessman looks to recoup his losses by traveling to Saudi Arabia and selling his idea to a wealthy monarch.

When I heard that a movie called A Hologram for the King was being made based on a novel by David Eggers (who wrote Where The Wild Things Are) and directed by Tom Tykwer (who co-directed Cloud Atlas and also directed the likes of Run Lola Run and Sense8), I thought for sure that this would be a weird sci-fi movie. And the trailer even started promising, with Tom Hanks singing Once in a Lifetime by The Talking Heads as stuff explodes into pink powder around him, but then….then it became something else. A soul-searching movie about an unhappy businessman in Saudi Arabia, with the world’s cheesiest trailer voiceover narration on top of it. I wish I could say I was looking forward to this, but I honestly just don’t see anything in this trailer that makes the movie stand out for me.